Wednesday, January 26, 2011

How I Heal as Resto

So, this is how I heal instances as Resto. I hope it helps out a bit for any of you aspiring Resto Druids out there. Mind you, I am not really much of a theory crafter. This is just what has worked for me so far.

First thing I usually do when we are getting ready to pull is put three stacks of Lifebloom on the tank. This method of healing is new and old to me at the same time. During early wrath, I used Lifebloom a lot. Then it got nerfed and went into my bag of never used tricks. Now it is awesome again. Go figure.

I keep lifebloom up on the tank at all times. Both Healing Touch and Nourish will refresh your stacks of Lifebloom. Keep this in mind depending on how your tank is taking damage.

If the tank is taking fairly light damage, I will put a rejuvenation on him as well. I prefer to use a clearcasting proc on it if I can, but if the damage is minor, you will have time to regenerate mana while lifebloom and rejuv do their thing.

As far as bigger heals go, I find that I am using more Healing Touch than Nourish these days. The cast time is long, but it heals for a boat load and refreshes lifebloom. This is your second bread and butter tank heal.

Swiftmend is used fairly frequently, but mostly when the tank is taking a big spike and needs a health buffer right now. For the most part, you can use Lifebloom, Rejuv, Healing Touch, and Swiftmend to keep your tank up with no problems.

Regrowth. This used to be one of my most used heals in Wrath. Now I don't even have it on my Healbot. Too expensive and doesn't do enough.

If the whole group is taking damage, I use Wild Growth. In fact, I usually use wild growth on just about every cooldown. It is pretty cheap and helps out quite a bit. If you have one DPS taking a bit more damage, you can throw a Rejuv on him and hopefully they stop doing whatever they are doing to take damage.

If not, you can use one of your bigger heals to save their bacon....unless of course you are sick of them taking damage and want to teach them a lesson. The let them taste some dirt and live and learn.

Don't be afraid to use you cooldowns. Tree of Life and Innervate are on 3 minute cooldowns. If you use Innervate towards the beggining of a long fight, you may be able to use it again before the fight ends. It could make the difference between winning and losing. I generally save my Tree of Life for the end of boss fights since this generally seems to be when they enrage and cause all kinds of unwanted damage.

Anyways, that is how I have been healing at 85. Hope you found it helpful. If not....well I see a bowl of dick over there for you to eat ;P

4 comments:

Be careful with pre-hotting the tank. Make sure he is ok with it and it won't screw up his initial aggro - when the HOT ticks, you get healing aggro. If you're healing for a paladin, or the pull is only a couple targets, no problem. If your tank is a bear and there's six targets you might have to wait.

I might be mis-reading (If the tank is taking fairly light damage, I will put a rejuvenation on him as well. I prefer to use a clearcasting proc on it if I can), but Rejuvenation does not consume clearcasting procs.